Book Review

Special Feature: Story-time recording on audio CD read by Alan Marriott. Alan Marriot is best known for his voices on television show Bob the Builder. The read-along and story-time recording includes information about Loggerhead Turtles.

Comments: An International Reading Association Teachers’ Choice; A Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year, 2001.

Summary: One Tiny Turtle is a non-fiction children’s book that tells us a powerful nature story of the unique characteristics and mysterious lives of Loggerhead Turtles. The story is experiences as one tiny turtle makes over a 1,000 mile journey in the oceans of the world from her birth to age thirty. The telling of the story is enhanced with its bright colorful illustrations and lyrical words. The story-time recording audio CD provides music that enhances the journey told through words and pictures.

Literary elements at work in the story:

Genre: Picture Book / Non-fiction -Information facts – Nature

Setting: Far, far out to sea and on the sandy beach where the Loggerhead Turtle is born.

Characterization: A Loggerhead Turtle is portrayed as a unique and wandering creature that lives a secret and intentional life in the oceans of the world.

Plot: A Loggerhead Turtle’s life is journey, as she safely travels thousands of miles in the ocean, from tiny baby to the age of thirty. One summer night the ocean currents guide her to the same beach where she was born where she makes a nest in the sand and lays and hides about one hundred Ping-Pong ball size eggs. She returns to the sea. The eggs hatch and one tiny turtle is kept safe and swims far, far out to sea. It begins with one tiny turtle.

Theme: The story provides informational facts about Loggerhead turtles that live in the oceans of the world. The story also awes us with the Loggerhead Turtle’s mysterious life and how man’s development of beaches, pollution of the ocean, and eating habits, put the survival of the turtle at risk.

Point of View: Third person storyteller who provides the reader with information facts about the tiny turtle and Loggerhead Turtles.

Style: Story uses lyrical words, colorful illustrations and astonishing facts about Loggerhead Turtles to show the reader the beautiful and precious creation of the Loggerhead Turtle who lives an amazing life of over 30 years in the oceans.

Perspective on Gender/Race/Economic/Ability: The Tiny Loggerhead Turtle in the story is female. The colorful illustrations add to our understanding of her growth from tiny baby to mother who possesses the incredible ability to journey thousands of miles in thirty years to her birthplace where she tenderly makes a nest and lays about one hundred eggs in the sand. While there is no mention of race or economic status it is important to note that there is a natural order to the turtles world. The tiny baby turtle lives a risky life as a source of food in the ocean and on the beach. The turtle as it grows is also a preditor who eats crabs it is referenced as being a source of food for other sea animals and birds, and a tiny baby turtle .

Scripture: Psalm 8; Genesis 1:1-26; Hebrews 2:5-9

Theology: The story teaches us about the mysterious splendor of God’s creation and God’s provision love, especially God’s provision for “One Tiny Turtle”. Creation itself is a hymn of praise that exalts the glory of God our creator. God has placed man in relationship with God, God’s creation, and each other. God created the entire world and created human kind a little lower than God and gave humans dominion over everything. Jesus, the Son of God, as truly human and truly God, is sovereign over the universe and is in charge of everything. (Psalm 8 is messianic psalm; Hebrews 2:5-9). Because of what God has done for humanity in Jesus Christ we joyfully, proclaim God’s majesty and respond by loving and caring for God’s mysterious world as stewards of the entirety of God’s universe. The amazing truth is the awing wonder of God’s loving and providential care of one tiny turtle and for us.

Faith Talk Questions:

Why do you think God made the oceans?

How many oceans are there in God’s world? [Look at a globe or map of the world.]

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THANKS so very much for this fabulous resource! I have bookmarked it and will check it regularly! Will pass it on!
Saw it on our Presbytery’s chat-line today and have been absorbing it ever since. Hope all Presbyteries are getting the word to the churches!